Tag: 20. Century

“Why did he burn the churches down?”

Divine punishment is an ever recuring theme in urban disasters. However, sometimes the situation does not quite fit the morals. In 1906 an earth quake hit the San Franscisco region. Fires broke out in the city, 3.000 citizens lost their lifes and 80% of the city’s buildings were destroyed. One of the buildings that were saved was the warehouse of Hotaling & Co., a local liqour company. Hotaling printed a postcard with the image below on one side and this short poem on the other:

If, as they say, God spanked the town
Because it was so frisky,
Why did he burn the churches down,
And saved Hotaling’s whiskey?

Atlantis by Donovan

Iconic Image from “Planet of the Apes”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvuM3DjvYf0

Thanks to Stephan Wagner for the reminder.

USA; 20. Century; Christian; film; City: New York

Nature does not know disasters

“Only man knows natural disasters, so far as he survives them. Nature does not know disasters.”

“Katastrophen kennt allein der Mensch, sofern er sie überlebt; die Natur kennt keine Katastrophen.“

from: Max Frisch: Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän. (1979)

The German term “Katastrophe” (Catastrophe) stems from the Greek name for a sudden turn of events and in antiquity was commonly used to describe a plot twist in a comedy. The English “disaster” literally means “bad star”. G. J. Schenk speculates that the usage of the term was made popular by the stories of Sindbad The Sailor in the Middle East in the 17th Century.

Switzerland; 20. Century; Christian; Literature

Benjamin Britten’s Opera about the flood of 1953

“Noye’s Fludde” is an opera by british composer Britten from 1958 based on the Noah myth. It premiered in England just 5 years after the great North Sea Flood of 1953.

UK; 20. Century; Christian; Music, Opera; Noah

Jupiter’s Darling

USA; 20. Century; Christian; Movie; City: Rome

The 1953 flood in the North Sea

The events on January 31. 1953 constitutes one of the moste severe floodings in the 20. Century in Europe. More than 1.800 lives were lost in the Netherlands, more than 300 in England and Schottland and 28 died in Belgium. As a direct result of the catastrophic events England began the development of the Thames Barrier and the Netherlands of the Delta Works. The flood has become the source of many musical compositions, books and movies.

UK, Netherlands, Belgium; 20. Century; Flood;

Pool at Leça da Palmeira Beach, Portugal

Portugal; 20. Century; Architecture

Thames Barrier

The Thames Barrier was installed in the 1980s to protect London from extreme floods from the North Sea. It’s design make it probabyl to most stylish flood protection structure ever and reflects the era of it’s planning, the 1970s. The Thames Barrier has been closed 184 times since it became operational in 1982. Of these closures, 97 were to protect against tidal flooding and 87 were to protect against combined tidal/fluvial flooding. (source: wikipedia)

To see what French artist Gustave Doré imagines London without the Thames Barrier, go here.

UK; 20. Century; Engineering; City: London

Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin

Soldiers Grove is a village situated along the Kickapoo River in Crawford County, Wisconsin, in the United States. The population was 592 at the 2010 census. The town has become a case study in best practices for managed retreat. In 1978, flooding inundated the Soldiers Grove area. In the aftermath of the disaster, $900,000 in federal funds were provided to assist in relocating the village’s business district to higher ground. Construction of the new business district began in 1979 and was completed by 1983. A park replaced the old downtown area along the river. It later became the self proclaimed “America’s First Solar Village”. (Quote: Wikiepdia)

USA; 20. Century; Policy, Managed Retreat; City: Soldiers Grove